The KORG PA-80 update which was released this week includes a host of minor improvements but to me it is once more vastly disappointing. On some of the main new issues I will include here some bits and pieces from the new manual:
ON SAMPLING:

THE SAMPLING MODE
A series of Sampling functions has been added to the Program
mode. This Sampling feature is designed to edit audio
loops and generate single percussive samples, to be used as
the rhythm track of a Style or a Backing Sequence. It is not to
be considered as the full-featured sampling feature of a dedicated
sampler.
After sampling or loading an audio groove, you can slice it
into separate percussive samples, and save the individual
samples to a new Program. A MIDI Groove file will also be
saved, to let you load the original pattern as MIDI data for
the percussive track of a Style.
The Program based on the sliced samples has to be assigned
to the Percussion track of a Style

ON THE FILL INS. (currently 2, and that is going to remain SO !!!!)


FILL TO VARIATION 1, 2, 3, 4
The new “Fill to Variation” functions have been added to the
Fill parameters. See “Page 20 - StyCtl: Drums”.
Fill1/2
You may assign four new functions to the FILL 1 and FILL 2
buttons. “Fill to Variation” (->1, ->2, ->3, ->4) automatically
selects one of the four available Style Variations at the end of
the fill.

NO DYNAMIC ARRANGER, not by far !!!!

Furthermore they have now added Touch Sensitivity to the most absurd function, e.g. the arranger will start depending on the touch sensitivity , but there is NO
touch sensitivity on ANY of the Acc. tracks,
(= no DYNAMIC ARRANGER therfore).
In one of my comments on the new and cheaper Yamaha PSR2000 I have pointed out on several occasions that the 2000 does include a Dynamic Arranger. It would be so easy for KORG and so valuable and musically expressive for the musician to include this that I remain completely baffled regarding this aspect.
I hope they will at least include this feature in the next minor update.............

john.

so, pa80 styles have only 2 fills.
Will these styles have compatibility with another keyboard if I change keyboard and buy one that have 4 fills per style?

Too bad, John. I wish they had done something more significant, such as improve the vocal harmonizer functions and add fill variations.
By the way, your CD sounds GREAT.
DonM

Don,

First of all thanks for the compliments on my new CD, good to hear it made it all the way to the States!!
As to the PA-80, this is really very disappointing and it is getting worse by the minute so to speak. I just read on the Yahoo
KOrg PA-80 discussion site that one of the most avid PA-80 users, FABIO from Belgium who also runs his own and very versatile PA
site, has withdrawn the 3.0 from his keyboard and replaced it by the 2.2 because of various malfunctionings. I will keep people posted here on what happens next.....

john.

Well, it's very close to TRITON. You can load/export multisamples. And that's all you need.
You know the Sampling feature in PA-80 is very unique among arranger keyboards.
You can load an audio drum or percussion loop. And the PA-80 will do the rest. It will slice it, generate MIDI grove for the slices, and then assign that grove to rythm track. Then you can change tempo without changing the pitch. It has that unique 'extend' funtion, which makes it sound realistic when tempo is slowed. And the most awesome feature is that, you can store the samples of flash cards, no need to reload everytime you startup PA-80.


[This message has been edited by Shakil (edited 12-04-2001).]

I do agree Shakil, but Korg is planning to charge $200 (or more) for an empty 8 mb flash card if you know todays market you can get a 64 mb flash card for $20 or so I really don't understand it, other thing is that I can not save my samples to the hard drive what is the purpose left for a hard drive, well good thing is now PA-80 can load Triton PCG's so it gives it a vast selection of programs available now from Triton and Triton LE !

"I can not save my samples to the hard drive what is the purpose left for a hard drive,".... there is always a blooper.

With the new OS3, I don't find much has been done for my needs. I'm not doing a lot of "slicing and dicing" on my keyboard. And, I'm not too interested in spending $200 for a ram card to fool around with these questionable new features - unless someone tells me what exactly they're good for!
I'm disappointed so far, but to be fair, I haven't sat down with the new OS3 manual to examine the upgrades closely. It seems such a long wait for so little.
Where are the Triton sounds that we can now load? Also, not much has been done to reduce the amount of button pushing to get to certain things. I find adjusting the part volumes awkward and getting to the Ensemble (harmony) settings, a royal pain in the butt. I mean, come on, they are on PAGE 19 of the menu!!
When's OS4 coming?

Tom

TomTomSF,
I can understand how frustrated you can get with having to go through so many menus to accomplish one small task. It would be nice if Korg took a lesson from Yamaha in this department. Some of the PSR's functions are several menus in, but Yammie got smart and added a "direct access" button. This is a great feature and I think this would be a good addition to the PA-80.

The only good thing I can see about O.S. 3 is that now you can load Triton PCG with some limitations (no drum kits) just download the original disks for Triton and load the programs, also check out www.tapesh.com/triton for much info and places where you can get the original programs.